1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical connector, in particular, to an optical connector as an optical connecting device to be connected to a small-sized optical component which is, like an optical semiconductor module used in an optical fiber communication system and others, fixed to a board.
2. Description of Prior Art
There have been developed and used various types of optical connectors and some of them are disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publications No. 211276 of 1997, No. 43453 of 1997, and No. 265026 of 1997. Among them, in an embodiment where an optical semiconductor module disclosed in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. 211276 of 1997 and an optical connecting device using the optical semiconductor module are employed, the embodiment has an optical semiconductor module, which has a package body accommodating a semiconductor laser and an optical fiber optically coupled thereto and double side walls respectively provided with a recess and formed in the traveling way of the laser light radiated from the semiconductor laser, and a simplified connector to be coupled with said module, having a recess in the inner wall holding a ferrule to which one end of the optical fiber is fixed, and being provided at its front end with a protuberance, and optical fibers are optically coupled with each other through the coupling of the ferrules by coupling the simplified connector with the optical semiconductor module.
Though these conventional optical connectors are suitable, to some extent, for producing a large amount of low-cost and small-sized modules indispensable in optical fiber communication systems, they usually still have some following problems. That is to say, to install a ferrule assembly into a conventional optical connector, a ferrule assembly to be installed is usually inserted from rear end of the housing and moved to the front end of the housing. In this assembling method, a stopper must be placed at the rear end of the housing after the installation and this means the increase in the number of components and the complexity of the retaining structure. Further, the installation itself is not easy and the ferrule once installed is difficult to remove.
An object of the present invention is to provide an optical connector allowing the conventional technological problems described above to be eliminated.